Reflection Fall 2015

Welcome to my e portfolio 2015 which contains multiple varieties of essays that were worked on through the fall semester of English 103 at Kishwaukee College. The fall semester this year consisted of 16 weeks. During those 16 weeks we focused on 4 different types of writing styles. The essays that were discussed this semester were Narratives, Rhetorical Analysis, Visual Analysis and a Persuasive Essay's . At the beginning of the class I was not familiar with some of these writing styles , but as the course went on I fully started to understand the concept of these writing styles and what makes them so unique.

The first writing styles that was focused on at beginning of the semester was a narrative. In class we had read a narrative as an example of what we could write about. The narrative that was read in class was a personal memory for the author. By using a personal memory made the story feel more unique because that was something that had actually happened to him. That is why I decided to write my narrative on the vacation that I took for my fifteenth birthday. A weakness that I had while writing this paper would have to be too much wordiness and it being poorly organized. I feel that I had too much information that I wanted to include ,and it did not blend together as I would have hoped so. Since this was the first essay of the semester I did not have a consistent writing process. So I just did the same as I would in high school. Sit in front of the computer start typing and see what I could come up with. I do feel that the narrative was an easy paper to write, but overall if I would have spent a little bit of more time revising the essay it would have flowed together nicely.

The second part of the class were the visual analysis and the rhetorical analysis. Both of the styles are closely similar , but do have their differences which make them unique. The visual analysis consists of a certain image and you have to analyse the image and why you believe the illustrator decided to use the certain colors, shapes or fonts. The image that analysed was an ad of Beyoncé for the 2013 Pepsi halftime show. The visual analysis was difficult because everyone’s interpretation is different. It was also difficult to expand on a certain detail from the image. The second analysis essay that we did was the rhetorical analysis. For the rhetorical analysis were were given different pieces of text and had to interpret what we believe the author was trying to portray. We also had to figure out why the author used different types of grammatical devices to help prove the author’s thesis. The grammatical devices that I choose to use for my essay were personal perspective, rhetorical questions and vivid imagery. '' Don't Blame The Eater was the article that i decided to analyse. The article was basically about David’s transformation from eating fast food everyday as a child to how he transformed his life to live a healthier lifestyle today. He also talks about how the fast food industry is trying to corrupt today’s children. The writing process for both of these essays were very similar. They both began with writing outlines. I had never used an outline for writing an essay in high school. The only time we were required to use an outline for an essay was when we wrote research papers. Using an outline is very useful because it helps you stay organized.By using an outline it is easier to set up your essay and figure out what you want your topic sentance and supporting details to be. At first when hearing the words rhetorical and visual analysis I was not sure what I would be getting myself into. After completing the essays I felt relieved and proud of myself for finding a new way to help improve my writing.

The final essay that we discussed this semester was definitely my favorite and easiest to write. Our final essay was a persuasive essay. In high school one of the major papers for multiple classes consisted of a persuasive essay. Persuasive essays are very easy to write especially if they are about something that you are either passionate or have some sort of knowledge about the topic. I decided to write my essay on how public high schools in the united states should require uniforms. I grew up wearing a uniform and totally agree on how they are a positive impact. The biggest example that I believe helped prove my point would be found in the second to last paragraph. That paragraph talks about how uniforms will help prepare children for the workforce. In the workforce you are not allowed to change your uniform even if you do not like the color pants that you are forced to wear. Children today are very opinionated on when it comes to fashion. With a uniform children will not have to worry about how they look, instead they could be worried on more important thing like there education. Since the outlines had worked well for the previous two essays i decided to use the same process. I found three quotes that I believe are important and based my paragraphs around those quotes. I feel like that the persuasive essay was the best way to end the semester.

Throughout the semester I feel like I have grown immensely in my writing. I have gained the knowledge of how different styles of writing should be written in a deeper and complex way. I fully understand what my senior humanities teacher was saying when she talked about how our writing in high school would differ when we got to college. I have also improved my writing process. I spend at least a full week before a paper is due to make an outline and figure out my topic and supporting sentences. Throughout this semester I feel like I have grown out of my comfort zone as an author. With all the success strategies I have learned I am now able to continue and improve my writing throughout my college career and the future.